Knowledge about the deleterious effects of smoking and its relationship to smoking cessation among pregnant adolescents

Smoking cessation among pregnant adolescents remains a complex and unresolved issue. The purpose of this study was to examine adolescents' knowledge of the detrimental effects of smoking on pregnant women and fetuses and its relationship to efforts to quit smoking. The sample consisted of 71 pregnant adolescents, and a three-group randomized intervention design-Teen FreshStart (TFS), Teen FreshStart with buddy (TFSB), and usual care control (UCC)-was used. Instruments included a demographic questionnaire, a smoking history questionnaire, and an 11-item scale measuring knowledge of the effects of smoking during pregnancy. For the entire sample, knowledge scores increased significantly (p = .000) from T1 (preintervention) to T2 (postintervention), and the adolescents who quit smoking had significantly higher knowledge at T2 (p = .028) and greater increases (T1 to T2) in their knowledge (p = .019) than did those who did not quit. Together, the TFS and TFSB groups had significantly higher knowledge at T2 (p = .017) and a significantly greater increase in knowledge from T1 to T2 (p = .005) than did the UCC group. This also held true when the TFS and TFSB groups were examined individually. Each had significantly higher knowledge at T2 (TFS, p = .029; TFSB, p = .008) and a significantly greater increase in knowledge from T1 to T2 (TFS, p = .007; TFSB, p = .009) than did the UCC group. Furthermore, despite the small sample sizes, within-group comparisons showed (a) no significant differences between quitters and nonquitters in the UCC group, (b) significantly higher knowledge at T2 (p = .052) and a trend indicating greater increases in knowledge from T1 to T2 (p = .092) for the quitters compared with the nonquitters in the TFS group, and (c) a trend for adolescents in the TFSB group who quit smoking to have greater increases in knowledge compared with those who did not quit (p = .158). These results indicate the need for continued inquiry into the relationship between pregnant teenagers' health knowledge and decisions to stop smoking.     

The struggle to listen: continuing reflections, lingering paradoxes, and some thoughts on recovery of memory

This paper offers a further expansion of the author's continuing endeavor to highlight and explore subtle distinctions and lingering paradoxes in how we listen, and to reconsider their profound implications for clinical work and discovery. Several perhaps commonplace clinical moments are used to sharpen illumination on psychic experience that might otherwise remain outside conscious awareness, whether in the domain of the repressed or in other mnemonic realms, such as "implicit" or "procedural" memory. It is suggested that added dimensions of these different levels of memory may, through our struggle to listen, be ultimately knowable.     

Detecting Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: The Role of Counselors

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a physical illness, the cause of which is unknown. Known also as chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome and myalgic encepalomyelitis, the illness has a probable incidence of 2 to 3 per 1,000 among adults and adolescents and is seen also in children. Only a small minority of cases are diagnosed, and only 25% of those suffering from CFS suspect this as the diagnosis. For this reason, counselors often see persons with unsuspected cases and may play an important role in detecting and referring these clients appropriately. Case histories are used to illustrate how suspected cases of CFS can be distinguished from depression and other mental health conditions in counseling practice.     

Contextual effects on metaphor comprehension in reading

Subjects read target sentences preceded by either short or long context that induced either a metaphoric or a literal target reading. As had been found by Ortony, Schallert, Reynolds, and Antos (1978), metaphoric targets were comprehended about as quickly as literals when context was long, but more slowly than literals when context was short. The latter result may have been due to the failure of computing a conceptual relationship between short context and metaphoric target; targets unrelated to prior context took as long to comprehend as metaphoric targets. Another experiment showed that metaphorically expressed targets were read more quickly when they followed metaphorically expressed context than when they followed literal context, but literal targets were read quickest when they followed literal context. These results are discussed within a schema framework and within a “process priming” hypothesis.     

Temporal overlap in the linguistic processing of successive words in reading: reply to Pollatsek, Reichle, and Rayner (2006a)

A. Pollatsek, E. D. Reichle, and K. Rayner argue that the critical findings in A. W. Inhoff, B. M. Eiter, and R. Radach are in general agreement with core assumptions of sequential attention shift models if additional assumptions and facts are considered. The current authors critically discuss the hypothesized time line of processing and indicate that the success of Pollatsek et al.'s simulation is predicated on a gross underestimation of the pretarget word's viewing duration in Inhoff et al. and that the actual data are difficult to reconcile with the strictly serial attention shift assumption. The authors also discuss attention shifting and saccade programming assumptions in the E-Z Reader model and conclude that these are not in harmony with research in related domains of study.     

Local contextual cuing in visual search

Previous research has indicated that covariations between the global layout of search displays and target locations result in contextual cuing: the global context guides attention to probable target locations. The present experiments extend these findings by showing that local redundancies also facilitate visual search. Participants searched for randomly located targets in invariant homogenous displays, i.e., the global context provided information neither about the location nor about the identity of the target. The only redundancy referred to spatial relations between the targets and certain distractors: Two of the distractors were frequently presented next to the targets. In four of five experiments, targets with frequent flankers were detected faster than targets with rare flankers. The data suggest that this local contextual cuing does not depend on awareness of the redundant local topography but needs the redundantly related stimuli to be attended to.     

The Child Behavior Checklist for Group Care Workers: A Study Regarding the Factor Structure

In this study we examined the factor structure of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) filled out by group care workers. Group care workers' judgements were collected on 846 children and adolescents treated in various residential settings in The Netherlands. Using confirmatory factor analysis, we were able to show that the original CBCL factor model based on parental judgments of child behavior also fits for the judgments of group care workers. This means that the well known 8 narrow-band syndromes (Withdrawn, Somatic Complaints, etc.) as well as the 2 broad-band syndromes (Internalizing and Externalizing) can be used to interpret the CBCL scores of group care workers. This confirmation of the CBCL factor structure is a first step to add a group care worker version to the CBCL family. However, as a second step, normative data need to be gathered to further enhance the use of the CBCL for group care workers.     

Long-range regressions to previously read words are guided by spatial and verbal memory

To examine the nature of the information that guides eye movements to previously read text during reading (regressions), we used a relatively novel technique to request a regression to a particular target word when the eyes reached a predefined location during sentence reading. A regression was to be directed to a close or a distant target when either the first or the second line of a complex two-line sentence was read. In addition, conditions were created that pitted effects of spatial and linguistic distance against each other. Initial regressions were more accurate when the target was spatially near, and effects of spatial distance dominated effects of verbal distance. Initial regressions rarely moved the eyes onto the target, however, and subsequent "corrective" regressions that homed in on the target were subject to general linguistic processing demands, being more accurate during first-line reading than during second-line reading. The results suggest that spatial and verbal memory guide regressions in reading. Initial regressions are primarily guided by fixation-centered spatial memory, and corrective regressions are primarily guided by linguistic knowledge.     

Angiotensin-(1-7)-induced plasticity changes in the lateral amygdala are mediated by COX-2 and NO

It is known from studies outside the brain that upon binding to its receptor, angiotensin-(1-7) elicits the release of prostanoids and nitric oxide (NO). Cyclooxygenase (COX) is a key enzyme that converts arachidonic acid to prostaglandins. Since there are no data available so far on the role of COX-2 in the amygdala, in a first step we demonstrated that the selective COX-2 inhibitor NS-398 significantly reduced the probability of long-term potentiation (LTP) induction in the lateral nucleus of the amygdala. Similarly, in COX-2^−/− mice, LTP induced by external capsule (EC) stimulation was impaired. Second, we evaluated the action of angiotensin-(1-7) in the amygdala. In wild-type mice, angiotensin-(1-7) increased LTP. This LTP-enhancing effect of Ang-(1-7) was not observed in COX-2^+/− mice. However, in COX-2^−/− mice, Ang-(1-7) caused an enhancement of LTP similar to that in wild-type mice. The NO synthetase inhibitor L-NAME blocked this angiotensin-(1-7)-induced increase in LTP in COX-2^−/− mice. Low-frequency stimulation of external capsule fibers did not cause long-term depression (LTD) in drug-free and angiotensin-(1-7)-treated brain slices in wild-type mice. In contrast, in COX-2^−/− mice, angiotensin-(1-7) caused stable LTD. Increasing NO concentration by the NO-donor SNAP also caused LTD in wild-type mice. Our study shows for the first time that LTP in the amygdala is dependent on COX-2 activity. Moreover, COX-2 is involved in the mediation of angiotensin-(1-7) effects on LTP. Finally, it is recognized that there is a molecular cross-talk between COX-2 and NO that may regulate synaptic plasticity.